Fly in the Buttermilk?
Shoo.
Shoo.
Shoo fly.
I can't think of buttermilk without seeing a glass half full of it in my mind's eye. Road maps randomly tracing the concavity of the side, chalky white is the glass, looking almost blue where no buttermilk has painted it so very white.

But that's nothing like the raindrops on the window pane here resembling so many tiny tear shaped flash lights pointing to or is it radiating from the street light on the corner in this dark night on Mt. Vernon. My house awaits the changes it will soon have happen to it.

Pallets of cement blocks are stacked on the flat trailer parked out front next to the nuding privet hedge.

The front yard soggily smells of early winter (tinged with the portopotty's chemical wafts reminding me of outdoor concerts before the throngs have fouled them).

Almost spring out there in recent days but the weatherman tells us that snow is gathering and advancing from the north east.

The garage slab is poured and smoothed to a sheen out back. The builders have been hurrying to lay the foundation on the house footings they just poured yesterday, Tuesday. Rushing around, earlier today, Wednesday, to finish laying the block in that escavation unearthed to the east and the south sides of this place. They are hoping to enclose the crawl space that almost doubles the area of this old house. There are two to four inches threatening to fall this week end say the apologetic weatherfolk.

There will be a new kitchen to the east side, with high clerestory windows above the sink, looking north. A family room behind that will have sliding glass doors that look south to the huge old maple just about fifteen feet behind the house. Looking past the maple is an expanse of wooded yard with two structures peeking back this way. Beside them there are eight four by fours poking up out of the ground waiting to become an arbor which will be covered in vines in time. The two wisteria are planted just this side of them and the pairs of posts recede toward the south forming a path next to the longest structure, the 16 X 12 foot insulated studio with a 12 X 12 porch behind that.

It seems almost magical to me after longing for private work space for so many years to have this place developing so beautifully. It is very quiet out there among the trees and not much penetrates to distract my thoughts while I work. I have been building windows out of wainscoating and 3/8 ths inch plexiglass and fir strips that are meant to be placed over the insulation in the main building out there. I used piano hinges to hold them in place and they can be opened up and propped to reveal the screens. The walls of that 12 X 12 are made of screen doors four to the side, two that open to the south and one on each side facing east and west.

The one screen door facing east looks out to the arbor which is at this point made into a temporary shelter for lengths of wood and other garage stuff. Shelving occupies that set of 8 posts that will eventually be covered with vines. Right now it has a roof made of white plastic corrogate, which is cantalevered over the path next to the studio.

The studio itself is a gambril roofed affair with a pair of windows in the western most side of the north facing wall. Those windows are, one low to the floor and horizontal, placed closely next to the other which is vertical --- so that they form an L shape --- one can peek out and toward the back of the house in order to see whoever might be coming out to visit. This through the few mature pagoda trees and couple of tall cedars providing some nice shade in the summertime. Oh, yes. And there's a mature plum tree next to the pagoda trees (and the Japanese maple I planted late this summer) that was half-unearthed several years back so that it grows at an oblique angle from east to west. It's leaves in season are a pleasant dark plum purple and form a screen along with some other bushes.

The dogs can peek into the studio through the lower window and see if I am inside, too. This they very much like. They also love to come into the porch area and go out one of the other doors. In and out they prance. Then they run around and growl at each other in youthful exuberance, luxuriating in their greatly prized doggie freedom in the big yard.

I will have a larger front bedroom when the house is finished. The living room is all that stays the same on the main floor. My old kitchen becomes a dining room, then a hall toward the exterior door to the new garage will go west from there.

It will have a new bathroom on each side adjoining both bedrooms on this floor. The back room on this floor will be a new bedroom for my husband who will move up here from Ypsi when he retires in a couple of years. In the meantime my son will be using that bedroom and bathroom while he helps bring the new additions to completion. Off that hall is entry to the basement, where my son finished a room in which he is staying during this transition period.

All this is very exciting to me but probably makes fairly dull reading.

Sorry.

Shoo fly pie and apple pan dowdy.

Sprtcs